1. Hard line focus in Iraq not Africa fails—their Meyer evidence talks about why our aggressive strategy toward Al Qaeda failed.
2. No internal link between the task force and global war on terrorism—Al Qaeda will penetrate Africa will happen now—increasing public health infrastructure in Djibouti does nothing to stop terrorism in Africa or world wide
Prof. Thomas P.M. Barnett, Senior Strategic Researcher at the U.S. Naval War College and Senior Managing Director of Enterra Solutions, 6-27-07 (Esquire, “The Americans Have Landed,” http://www.esquire.com/features/africacommand0707 [T Chenoweth])
the so-called three-D approach so clearly lacking in America's recent postwar reconstruction efforts elsewhere. Because the task force didn't own the sovereign space it was operating in, as U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq did, the Marines were forced to work under and through the American ambassadors, their State Department country teams, and the attached U.S. Agency for International Development missions. If little of that cooperation was occurring in Kabul and Baghdad, then maybe Africa would be better suited. The Horn of Africa was supposed to be Washington's bureaucratic mea culpa for the Green Zone, a proving ground for the next generation of interagency cooperation that fuels America's eventual victory in what Abizaid once dubbed the "long war" against radical Islam. But as its first great test in Somalia demonstrated, the three D's are still a long way from being synchronized, and as the Pentagon sets up its new Africa Command in the summer of 2008, the time for sloppy off-Broadway tryouts is running out. Eventually, Al Qaeda's penetration of Muslim Africa will happen -- witness the stunning recent appearance of suicide bombers in Casablanca -- and either the three D's will answer this challenge, or this road show will close faster than you can say "Black Hawk down."
3. Terrorists go elsewhere—Even if terrorists were going to use Africa as their base to attack the US they would just go ANYWHERE else in Africa that wasn’t Djibouti to do it
4. Al Queda has already struck US embassies in Africa—the only way to stop terrorists is to help Africa’s economic/religious/and governance problems
Princeton N. Lyman, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies at CFR, and J. Stephen Morrison, Director of CSIS Africa Program; Jan/Feb 04 (The Terrorist Threat in Africa., Foreign Affairs, 00157120, Vol. 83, Issue 1, Business Source Complete [T Chenoweth]
ON AUGUST 7, 1998, two massive bombs exploded outside of the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, killing 224 people -- including 12 Americans -- and injuring 5,000. Responsibility was quickly traced to al Qaeda. Four years later, al Qaeda operatives struck again, killing 15 people in an Israeli-owned hotel near Mombasa, Kenya, and simultaneously firing missiles at an Israeli passenger jet taking off from Mombasa's airport. An alarmed United States responded to these attacks with conviction. In addition to proposing significant increases in development assistance and a major initiative on HIV/AIDS, the Bush administration has designated the greater Horn of Africa a front-line region in its global war against terrorism and has worked to dismantle al Qaeda infrastructure there. At the same time, however, the United States has failed to recognize the existence of other, less visible, terrorist threats elsewhere on the African continent. Countering the rise of grass-roots extremism has been a central part of U.S. strategy in the Middle East, but the same has not generally been true for Africa. In Nigeria, for example, a potent mix of communal tensions, radical Islamism, and anti-Americanism has produced a fertile breeding ground for militancy and threatens to tear the country apart. South Africa has seen the emergence of a violent Islamist group. And in West and Central Africa, criminal networks launder cash from illicit trade in diamonds, joining forces with corrupt local leaders to form lawless bazaars that are increasingly exploited by al Qaeda to shelter its assets. As the war on terrorism intensifies in Kenya and elsewhere, radicals might migrate to more accessible, war-ravaged venues across the continent. The Bush administration must deal with these threats by adopting a more holistic approach to fighting terrorism in Africa. Rather than concentrate solely on shutting down existing al Qaeda cells, it must also deal with the continent's fundamental problems -- economic distress, ethnic and religious fissures, fragile governance, weak democracy, and rampant human rights abuses -- that create an environment in which terrorists thrive. The United States must also eliminate the obstacles to developing a coherent Africa policy that exist in Washington. Counterterrorism programs for the region are consistently underfinanced, responsibilities are divided along archaic bureaucratic lines, there is no U.S. diplomatic presence in several strategic locations, and long-term imperatives are consistently allowed to be eclipsed by short-term humanitarian demands. The war on terrorism might make officials realize what they should have known earlier: that Africa cannot be kept at the back of the queue forever if U.S. security interests are to be advanced.
5. No spillover between Djibouti infrastructure and African terrorism—Barnett concedes that the task force cant even handle nation building in the Horn let alone greater Africa—infrastructure doesn’t stop terrorists
If we're talking about doomsday - the end of human civilization - many scenarios simply don't measure up. A single nuclear bombignited by terrorists, for example, would be awful beyond words, but life would go on. People and machines might converge in ways that you and I would find ghastly, but from the standpoint of the future, they would probably represent an adaptation.
7. African terror networks will NOT use nuclear weapons on the US—Kennedy says that terrorists hubs in failed states make it more likely that terrorists could acquire weapons—this is NOT unique to Africa, any failed state is a place where weapons are acquirable—there is no warrant why the weapons would be used on the US
8. Terrorists cannot produce requisite materials for Nuclear Weapons
Annette Schaper (Senior research associate at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) and has a Ph.D. in
experimental physics, 2003, (http://www.unidir.ch/pdf/articles/pdf-art1907.pdf)
It can be ruled out that a terrorist group has the capability to produce plutonium or HEU. At most, only a state with appropriate resources could carry out such an endeavour, and it is doubtful whether such a programme could be kept hidden for long. Large-scale nuclear plants are necessary, the procurement and operation of which could not be kept secret. All procedures for the enrichment of uranium or for plutonium reprocessing leave traces in the environment. In case of a suspicion in non-nuclear-weapon states, illicit activities could be discovered immediately as all plants are subject to IAEA safeguards. The production of uranium or plutonium is extraordinarily resource intensive, as can be illustrated by the fact that Iraq employed thousands of members of staff throughout the 1980s in order to clandestinely manufacture HEU. Nevertheless, only small amounts of HEU were produced. At that time, the IAEA inspections were less thorough and the extent of the production activities was only discovered after the Gulf War. As a result of this deception, IAEA safeguards have been strengthened and it is considered improbable that a similar case could go undiscovered today.
2. No internal link between the task force and global war on terrorism—Al Qaeda will penetrate Africa will happen now—increasing public health infrastructure in Djibouti does nothing to stop terrorism in Africa or world wide
Prof. Thomas P.M. Barnett, Senior Strategic Researcher at the U.S. Naval War College and Senior Managing Director of Enterra Solutions, 6-27-07 (Esquire, “The Americans Have Landed,” http://www.esquire.com/features/africacommand0707 [T Chenoweth])
the so-called three-D approach so clearly lacking in America's recent postwar reconstruction efforts elsewhere. Because the task force didn't own the sovereign space it was operating in, as U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq did, the Marines were forced to work under and through the American ambassadors, their State Department country teams, and the attached U.S. Agency for International Development missions. If little of that cooperation was occurring in Kabul and Baghdad, then maybe Africa would be better suited. The Horn of Africa was supposed to be Washington's bureaucratic mea culpa for the Green Zone, a proving ground for the next generation of interagency cooperation that fuels America's eventual victory in what Abizaid once dubbed the "long war" against radical Islam. But as its first great test in Somalia demonstrated, the three D's are still a long way from being synchronized, and as the Pentagon sets up its new Africa Command in the summer of 2008, the time for sloppy off-Broadway tryouts is running out. Eventually, Al Qaeda's penetration of Muslim Africa will happen -- witness the stunning recent appearance of suicide bombers in Casablanca -- and either the three D's will answer this challenge, or this road show will close faster than you can say "Black Hawk down."
3. Terrorists go elsewhere—Even if terrorists were going to use Africa as their base to attack the US they would just go ANYWHERE else in Africa that wasn’t Djibouti to do it
4. Al Queda has already struck US embassies in Africa—the only way to stop terrorists is to help Africa’s economic/religious/and governance problems
Princeton N. Lyman, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies at CFR, and J. Stephen Morrison, Director of CSIS Africa Program; Jan/Feb 04 (The Terrorist Threat in Africa., Foreign Affairs, 00157120, Vol. 83, Issue 1, Business Source Complete [T Chenoweth]
ON AUGUST 7, 1998, two massive bombs exploded outside of the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, killing 224 people -- including 12 Americans -- and injuring 5,000. Responsibility was quickly traced to al Qaeda. Four years later, al Qaeda operatives struck again, killing 15 people in an Israeli-owned hotel near Mombasa, Kenya, and simultaneously firing missiles at an Israeli passenger jet taking off from Mombasa's airport. An alarmed United States responded to these attacks with conviction. In addition to proposing significant increases in development assistance and a major initiative on HIV/AIDS, the Bush administration has designated the greater Horn of Africa a front-line region in its global war against terrorism and has worked to dismantle al Qaeda infrastructure there. At the same time, however, the United States has failed to recognize the existence of other, less visible, terrorist threats elsewhere on the African continent. Countering the rise of grass-roots extremism has been a central part of U.S. strategy in the Middle East, but the same has not generally been true for Africa. In Nigeria, for example, a potent mix of communal tensions, radical Islamism, and anti-Americanism has produced a fertile breeding ground for militancy and threatens to tear the country apart. South Africa has seen the emergence of a violent Islamist group. And in West and Central Africa, criminal networks launder cash from illicit trade in diamonds, joining forces with corrupt local leaders to form lawless bazaars that are increasingly exploited by al Qaeda to shelter its assets. As the war on terrorism intensifies in Kenya and elsewhere, radicals might migrate to more accessible, war-ravaged venues across the continent. The Bush administration must deal with these threats by adopting a more holistic approach to fighting terrorism in Africa. Rather than concentrate solely on shutting down existing al Qaeda cells, it must also deal with the continent's fundamental problems -- economic distress, ethnic and religious fissures, fragile governance, weak democracy, and rampant human rights abuses -- that create an environment in which terrorists thrive. The United States must also eliminate the obstacles to developing a coherent Africa policy that exist in Washington. Counterterrorism programs for the region are consistently underfinanced, responsibilities are divided along archaic bureaucratic lines, there is no U.S. diplomatic presence in several strategic locations, and long-term imperatives are consistently allowed to be eclipsed by short-term humanitarian demands. The war on terrorism might make officials realize what they should have known earlier: that Africa cannot be kept at the back of the queue forever if U.S. security interests are to be advanced.
5. No spillover between Djibouti infrastructure and African terrorism—Barnett concedes that the task force cant even handle nation building in the Horn let alone greater Africa—infrastructure doesn’t stop terrorists
6. A nuclear terrorist attack will not cause extinction.
Gregg Easterbrook (WIRED, November 7, 2003, http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.07/doomsday.html)
If we're talking about doomsday - the end of human civilization - many scenarios simply don't measure up. A single nuclear bomb ignited by terrorists, for example, would be awful beyond words, but life would go on. People and machines might converge in ways that you and I would find ghastly, but from the standpoint of the future, they would probably represent an adaptation.
7. African terror networks will NOT use nuclear weapons on the US—Kennedy says that terrorists hubs in failed states make it more likely that terrorists could acquire weapons—this is NOT unique to Africa, any failed state is a place where weapons are acquirable—there is no warrant why the weapons would be used on the US
8. Terrorists cannot produce requisite materials for Nuclear Weapons
Annette Schaper (Senior research associate at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) and has a Ph.D. in
experimental physics, 2003, (http://www.unidir.ch/pdf/articles/pdf-art1907.pdf)
It can be ruled out that a terrorist group has the capability to produce plutonium or HEU. At most, only a state with appropriate resources could carry out such an endeavour, and it is doubtful whether such a programme could be kept hidden for long. Large-scale nuclear plants are necessary, the procurement and operation of which could not be kept secret. All procedures for the enrichment of uranium or for plutonium reprocessing leave traces in the environment. In case of a suspicion in non-nuclear-weapon states, illicit activities could be discovered immediately as all plants are subject to IAEA safeguards. The production of uranium or plutonium is extraordinarily resource intensive, as can be illustrated by the fact that Iraq employed thousands of members of staff throughout the 1980s in order to clandestinely manufacture HEU. Nevertheless, only small amounts of HEU were produced. At that time, the IAEA inspections were less thorough and the extent of the production activities was only discovered after the Gulf War. As a result of this deception, IAEA safeguards have been strengthened and it is considered improbable that a similar case could go undiscovered today.